The KDE BitTorrent client KTorrent has become the first to implement the 'improved' BitTorrent protocol that was open sourced by BitTorrent Inc. a few days ago. With uTP, KTorrent users should cause less network congestion and interference with other applications. They are also the first to benefit from faster connections to uTorrent users.

In March the uTorrent team released the long-awaited version 2.0 of their popular BitTorrent client which introduced several significant changes.

One of the novelties in the new uTorrent release was uTP, a new and improved implementation of the BitTorrent protocol which is designed to be network friendly. Critics, however, have labeled the new release as unfair, which has resulted in the client being banned from several private BitTorrent trackers.

The critique was aimed at the new uTP protocol which causes uTorrent to favor its own kind when networking. This means that when connecting to other clients, uTorrent users will give preference to other uTorrent users.

Earlier this week BitTorrent Inc., the company behind uTorrent, open sourced the uTP protocol so other developers can make their clients uTorrent compatible. Although not all developers are equally excited about uTP, Ktorrent has already upgraded its client to support uTP with its new 4.0 release.

“Several KTorrent users asked for it, and it seemed like an interesting feature to add,” KTorrent developer Joris Guisson told TorrentFreak in a comment.

To our knowledge, KTorrent is the first client outside BitTorrent Inc. to implement uTP support. With uTP, KTorrent will be more network aware as it will throttle itself if congestion is detected in the network. In theory, this should eliminate the need for ISPs to throttle BitTorrent traffic, while KTorrent users should see less interference with other local applications.

Aside from adding uTP support the latest KTorrent release also adds support for magnet links, a feature that was pushed by The Pirate Bay and has now been implemented by all the prominent BitTorrent clients. The full KTorrent changelog can be found at the official website.